No wings of wax or endless moutains
by snail-butt
Summary: Uchina Itachi makes better choices, but only because his mother made him do it
1. Chapter 1

The evening after Itachi had attacked his fellow clansman, his mother pulls him aside. She asks him to help her with the dishes after dinner so he clears the table as she starts filling the sink with warm water.

Itachi watches as Fugaku offer to take Sasuke out star gazing. His little brother excitedly agrees, it's rare for Fugaku to spend any time with the six year old, his honored father prefers to foster unnecessary competition between him and his brother.

Luckily it never works, sasuke has none of the competitiveness of a shinobi and probably just thinks Fugaku dislikes him. That's just as likely, but honestly Itachi doubt's Fugaku feels any emotion for his children. They are little more that tools, a means to an end to further the pride of the Uchiha clan. Because Itachi has prevented Fugaku from dragging Sasuke into a shinobi mindset and there is no war currently raging that his honored father can use as an excuse to mould his younger son into the shape he wishes. Sasuke remains a child and a civilian for all that he is the second son of the clan head. Itachi hopes he can keep Sasuke from the fate of shinobi-hood, but he doubts he can put off the inevitable forever.

Itachi carries the plates into the kitchen as his brother and Fugaku leave. he watches through the open shouji as Fugaku explains the way stars can be used for navigation. He doesn't help Sasuke put on his sandals.

The front door shuts and Itachi joins his mother at the sink. She's finished filling the sink and is pulling back her loose hair with wet hands. Itachi starts mixing in the dish soap and notes that she's run three tubs of water, the third is a plastic tubs set up on the counter beside the rinse water.

"Add bleach to the third tub please, we're doing a deep clean today" his mother breaks the silence as she finishes knotting her hair on top for her head.

Itachi ducks down and opens the cabinet under the sink, he retrieves the bleach and when he stands back up his mother reaches for his head. She carefully telegraphs her motions and keeps within his view but he barely suppress the flinch as her fingers settle in his hair. Her finger slid back to his neck and deftly unknot his hair tye and pull it free.

"Its ok, i don't need you to put my hair up to do the dishes" itachi says, before he had enjoyed her braiding his bangs back when they clean together but he finds he can't relax into her touch tonight.

"Are you sure? I always get sweaty when my hair's in my face an i can't brush it back because my hands are covered in soap." His mother's hands retreat taking the hair tie with them, but his hair doesn't fall around his shoulder like normal, just stays stiff at the back of his neck, he tries not to think about why.

"I'm ok" he says and pulls the first plate from the stack switching places with his mother and sinking his hands into the warm soapy water of the wash tub. She doesn't say anything just picks up the bleach he'd left on the counter and measures out a few drops into the plastic tub.

"I heard your cousin Fuyumi's got her eye, on someone new" Itachi's mother says mildly as she finishes adding the bleach and moves to stand in front of the rinse tub.

"Hm?" he replies handing over the plate and reaching for a cup.

"I didn't think she'd move on so quick after her genin teammate turned her down, she confessed to her after they were promoted to chunin together you know" Itachi does know, she had told him when it happened a year and a half ago. They had been in the kitchen, just like this except Itachi had been drying and putting away the clean dishes while his mother and- he turns away from that memory unwilling to examine the absence in the room

"But she's got her eye on that sword makers apprentice who comes by every two months to sell her masters works" His mother continues allowing him something else to focus on.

"Fuyumi-chan is always hanging around the gates when the traders come in these days, yesterday I heard from her mother she came home with a new tanto, even though she got one just a few months ago and already has quite the family collection to pick from" Itachi finishes scrubbing at a stubborn spot on the bottom of the glass and hands it over as his mother sets the plate into the bleach water and keeps going;

"That girl had better find another excuse to spend time around her crush or she'll blow all her mission money on middle-grade tanto"

They continue like this for awhile, his mother sharing the results of her constant low grade info gathering while Itachi provides monosyllabic responses at the appropriate time and tries to focus on what she's saying. Finally, when most of the dishes are soaking in the bleach water and Itachi is finishing up with the last pair of chopsticks his mother speaks to him directly

"Say you should let me wash your hair" she says as she takes the chopsticks from him. He looks up at her sharply, his hands stilling from where they were just about to pull the drain plug.

"Hush hush" she says waving a hand at him and she rinses the chopsticks with the other "I just updated the seals on my lab and extracted fresh poison ingredients this morning, but I could use some help mixing and labeling and I'd feel bad if I didn't do something for you in return"

That's how they end up in the family bath house, it takes Mikoto an hour to scrub the matted tangles out of his hair. He closes his eyes and doesn't look at the rust colored water running into the drain, he hadn't taken a showered since yesterday.

Finally his mother rinses out the soap by tossing a cold bucket of water over his head thereby forcing him to soak in the bath water she'd heated until he stops shivering.

When he leaves the bath house wrapped in a patched yukata and his mother's hanten his mother has two mugs of chai tea waiting for them on the garden veranda. His is made with milk and cinnamon and he starts drinking it while she towels and brushes his hair.

She starts braiding up his bangs and this time he doesn't protest finding he can relax with the smell of cinnamon and the black henbane his mother grows under the veranda filling his nose instead of blood. The dish water had cleaned it from under his nails and the last of the blood matting his hair had gone down the drain in the bath house half an hour ago.

His mother loops the rest of his hair up into a tight bun and stabs it in place with a senbon, then she makes him take off her hanten and tie back his sleeves before they take their tea down to her lab.

His mother's lab is a heavily sealed underground set two rooms, she leads him through the darkened first room and he pauses for a second to watch the box jellyfish float in the large tank in the western corner, when he was much younger he would sit and watch the creatures in his mother's aquarium for hours, that was before he learned what they were for.

His favorite hasn't changed, though his reasons are different now. He draws closer to his mother's huge collection of sea snails, watching a brightly colored cone shelled specimen move across it's darked tank.

His mother calls to him from her workshop and he reluctantly turns away, the cone shelled snails seem pretucualy appealing today. But he isn't allowed down here on his own and in the time it would take him to open the tank his mother would hear him and rush into the room.

He's never looked at the snails like this before, even after he was inducted into Anbu and year ago. 'I promised sasuke we'd train together tomorrow' Itachi reminds himself as he joins his mother at the in the other room of the lab.

This room is the real lab, the other room is just for specimens and storage. On the shelves lining the walls stills bubble and bacterial cultures sit quietly, there are closed tubes and bottles covering the lower shelves and the desk in the corner is cluttered of scrolls on sealing theory and scratch sheets of structural floor table in center is pristine, not yet covered with the plastic cover his mother puts on when they are working, there are four cushions set up around it's circular edge and he wonders who she had down here before him.

Itachi settles down on one of quilted cushions that surround and sets his teacup down on the table, he mother does the same across.

"You know this room is sealed so securely that people outside, even those with the byakugan or sharingan can't detect our chakra while we are inside" His mother looks at him over the tea cup she is blowing on. Itachi does know, it must be useful for plotting a coup in secret.

She doesn't need to blow on the tea, It would have already cooled to a drinkable temperature while they sat on the veranda above her poison garden. His mother is still looking at him so Itachi nods his head and takes a sip of his tea

"No one can hear what we say in here, Hmm?" His mother is still watching him, her face and posture are inscrutable and her pale hands give him no clues from where they're wrapped around her tea cup. He's known her his whole life, he knows any tell she gives him is one she is consciously broadcasting for his benefit.

He keeps his eyes on her hands while he waits for her to continue, the genjutsu that covers her right hand is there as it has been since he was nine. He doesn't know whether it was always there and he just became adapt enough to notice it or whether it was something that she just started doing suddenly.

At first he had thought it was a test and had tried to break it, she had scolded him for being impolite and he had never tried again, he had never asked her about it either. That was the year she retired from active duty, he has wondered many times if those two things are correlated.

He knows she didn't retire to take care of him and sasuke, before he was nine she had been constantly away on mission and had pawned off babysitting duty on her Genin team or her own genin sensei. Her sensei had defected from the Village that year as well. he figures that's probably the real reason she quit being a shinobi.

His mother sighs and speaks again before he can continue down that particular well worn path of speculation; "I know things have been tense between you and the clan lately, especially between you and your father. Even your brother has noticed"

She pauses to take another sip of her tea and Itachi tries not tense. He hopes this isn't another recrutement speech like the one Fugaku had given him when he made chunin. He loved his mother almost as much as he loves his brother but he won't be swayed against his village. He's known she is involved in the coup but he doesn't know if he can bear sitting through his mother trying to convince him to betray the village, especially after yesterday-

he takes a deep breath in and tries to still his racing thoughts. He knows sees him do it but she can read through everything he does anyway, He's been called a genius but his mother was trained by a sannin and he's suspected that she was Anbu ever since he joined himself. She's also his mother, there's no point trying to hide his tells from her.

He directs his mind toward the evidence he has collected that his mother spent time in the special ops. Speculation about his mother's career has been a common pastime since before he entered the academy and the familiarity soothes him. He paces his breathing as he begins to run through the list; Her constant long sleeves, her tips on silent assination, her propensity for painless and untraceable poisons, her encyclopedic knowledge of-

" you know that I'm your mother before I'm a member of the Uchiha clan right? I didn't bring you down here to give you a panic attack" his mother has set down her empty tea cup and is speaking again, It draws Itachi out of his familiar mantra and he deliberately loosens his grip on his yukata when he registers her words.

He wasn't having a panic attack, ninja don't do that. Uchina don't do that

"I told you about the seals to remind you that it safe to tell me things down here" It's not, she's planning to release the nine tails against the village he has sworn to protect.

"your father told me he thinks you awakened the Mangekyo sharingan yesterday"

He didn't- It was Shisui who took that last step backwards, who dropped like a stone out of his sight-Shisui who he had rushed down to see floating face down in that Naka like just another piece of debris, Shisui who he had dragged from the water, whose blood had mixed with river water and drenched his clothes and hair, whose chest had refused to rise- whose face had been cold- that empty eye sockets open and staring at him accusingly. It's my fault, I got him involved, I killed him- Oh god Shisui-

"Breathe, Itachi" his mother is suddenly on the other side of the table. Her hand grabbing his had pulled him into hyper awareness as he reached for a weapon pouch that wasn't there.

"I know you didn't kill him" I did.

"Listen, breathe with me ok? In,one,two, three, out, one, two, three " He's knocked over his tea cup, the chai and milk is spreading across the table and dripping on to the floor

"In, one, two, three, out, one, two, three, four" He sucks in a shaky breath and tries to follow his mothers instructions, her face is tight and the scars on her upper lip and nose stand out sharply against her skin. She looks scared.

"In, one, two, three" no doubt the fear on her face is just another carefully controlled show of emotion, the white knuckled way she grips his hand must be one as well. Shinobi of her caliber can't afford emotions, she wasn't S-ranked in the Kiri bingo book during the third war for nothing.

"Out, one, two, three, four" Itachi drains his mind of feeling the way Anbu has taught him and catalogues everything around him to fill up the empty space. He finds he can't focus on the familiar room around him so he focuses on his mother's voice and shuts his eyes.

"In, one, two, three" He breathes with her.

They sit and count and breath for a while. Itachi fills his mind with only the numbers and the way his lungs fill and deflate. His mother gradually creeps the numbers up higher and higher until he is counting to eight in his head on his exhale. He opens his eyes and her grip on his hand loosens but doesn't let go. Her face is still pinched but some of the naked emotion has fled, she seems satisfied with his rate of breathe because she stops counting

"Fuck, I'm sorry. I should have waited to bring this up" Itachi is shocked into looking up at her eyes, he's never heard his mother swear.

"I just wanted to get to you before Fugaku did, I didn't want you to go through this alone like I did" Go through what?

"It doesn't work to bottle up what happened and deny your emotions. The Uchina might not show it, but the way we feel emotions is dangerous. The memories of what happened are perfectly stored in your sharingan, no matter how long you spend pushing them away they will never leave you alone. You have to grow used to the feeling they create, to the hole this left in you" His mother takes a deep breath, the tea is soaking the cushion she vacated to rush to his side of the table.

"If you don't the feeling will consume you the way it consumed your father and Madara before him as well as countless Uchina in between. You have to let yourself feel the greif" She squeezes his hand.

"My father?" Itachi finds himself asking.

"Your father has the Mangekyou Sharingan, he's had it for longer than me, but I dare say he knows less about it"

"You have it?" again he is talking before he can process the consequences of his words.

"Most of the Uchina who fought in one of the wars have it. The elders might say that the only way to activate it is to kill the one you love the most, but they're old fools. All it requires is trauma and guilt and when your comrade fall beside you it's easy to blame yourself for not watching their back" His mother's explanation releases something in him that has been pulled taut since he confronted his clanmates this morning. Memories can be faked, he had worried that he had used Shisui's eye on himself, and though it's still hard to think of his best freind, those fears are gone.

"Itachi I came down here hoping you'd tell be who did this to you, who killed him. But I know it's not fair to ask you tell be about it. It's been six years for me, it was yesterday for me" The sound of tea dripping has finally ceased, all off it has drained off the table and onto the easily cleaned smooth stone floor of the lab.

"If you'll let me I'll tell you about how I got the Mangekyou Sharingan. I know you don't trust me anymore but I'm your mother before I'm an Uchina and to me you're my son before you are a shinobi of village" His mother repeats herself.

"Can we clean up the tea first?" Itachi asks as he absorbs what his mother has just said. does she mean to promise him that she'll put over the Uchiha as a whole?

His mother blinks at him and then the edge of her mouth crooks upwards "sorry about that, I knocked it over early. I can make more if you want"


	2. Chapter 2

It doesn't take his mother long to mop up the tea, most of it has already gone down the drain in the middle of the concrete floor. She mops the rest up with one of the towels she keeps in her desk and then ushers Itachi into the storage and specimen room. She brings two of the cushions that weren't soaked with tea with the middle sets them in the middle of the floor.

Itachi wonders why she wants to have this conversation surrounded by her poisonous sea creatures, maybe it's the darkness that will allow her to hide her expressions from him or maybe she also finds comfort in being surrounded with creatures that bring quick and certain death, many of which are painless. Painless death is a luxury among ninja, to able to kill your enemies painlessly is privilege most ninja can't afford, but many of his mother's poisons doll it out without sacrificing efficiency. Some of her best blends can kill in as little as two minutes (less if admisited in the right spots) without even alerting their recipients that they've been poisoned until they are immobilized.

Itachi finds the creatures that create these compounds a reassuring gift amid the violence of the ninja world. They are a promise that if he has to kill for his village at least he can do it without unnecessary suffering. Unfortunately he hasn't had much of a chance to use his mother's poisons, for all he has been learning about them at his mother's knee since before the academy. His genin sensei considered poison a coward's weapon, ironic since the place of a ninja is to kill efficiently and undetectable without honor holding them back as it would a samurai. Then once he had made Chunin and been inducted into anbu he had been unwilling to ask his mother for her poisons as he didn't want to incur debt to one of the people plotting to overthrow the village he served.

There was also the other uses for poisons that Itachi was far less comforted by thinking about. Many off his mother's blends were specifically made for use in T&I. the slow onset of rot from a snake bite, the excruciating pain of a kingslaying jellyfish's venom or a non lethal dose of belladonna or angel's trumpet to produce unpleasant hallucinations, all were incredibly useful for interrogation. His mother's old genin students often stopped by to beg free poison from their old sensei. Yugao and Hayate were always after her undetectable killers and quick acting painless neurotoxins but he other two remaining students were always asking for his mother's non lethal blend of Angel's trumpet and kingslayer jellyfish venom. Ibiki in particular was always after rusell's viper venom, Itachi didn't really want to consider what he was using a poison that causes necrosis for.

His mother had taught two of T&I top integrators and it was one of the things that made him most wary of her, right after her involvement with the coup and her unreadable expressions.

Itachi pulled his mind off these thoughts and watched as his mother settled down on the cushion next to him. The bioluminescent plankton in the box jellyfish's tank is the only thing that illuminates her blank expression as she'd turned off the lights in the lab when they left.

He tries to give her the benefit of the doubt on such things as training tourture specialists, tourture is a vital part of the information gathering economy of Konoha, it allows their village to be prepared for enemy movements. Itachi dislikes the necessity of it but it's just another thing built into the ninja system.

When he was younger Itachi had dreamed of deconstructing the system, erasing the need for violence. Now he sees no way out, he can't even prevent his clan from revolting (can't protect his best friend) he can barely protect his little brother from the life of a ninja. When Sasuke turns six he will be enrolled in the academy and no amount of arguments with Fugaku will prevent it.

He should have known better than to be openly hostile to his father over something he knew he wouldn't be able to change. He had to try but he knew it was unwise as both of his parents most likely already suspected his stance on the coup and open hostility with his honored father most likely only further convinced him. Fugaku probably thought he was trying to deprive the clan of a future asset, His mother was smarter than than but who knows what she thought of his insistence on shielding Sasuke.

He drags his mind away from his dark thoughts of his little brother's inevitable future as a tool, either of the clan or the village, and turns his attention back to his mother for the second time. She has been silent up till now, most likely being able to tell that he is absorbed in his rumination over nearly all of the large and small things that he has been unable to change over the course of his life, but as soon as he pulls his attention away from those things she speaks up.

"You remember my genin teammate Kushina right?" his mother asks and Itachi nods. He remembers Kushina, though calling her his mother's genin teammate is definitely an understatement. His mother and Kushina had been close, Kushina had come over for tea every day without fail. After tea she would drag his mother out the training grounds where they would spar, sometimes against each other and sometimes against their Genin sensei. Itachi had only watched a few of these spars as they were mostly too fast for him to see what was going on, but he remembers the way his mother and Kushina had moved, as if they knew where the other would be before they got there. Their teamwork was impeccable and together they even forced their sensei to bring out his summons a couple of times.

The sight of orochimuro's huge snakes wrestling against Kushina's chakra chains and avoiding his mother supporting fire of lighting charged shuriken was the reasons Itachi would sneak out to watch the spars. He remembers one time when he was five his mother and Kushina destroyed a whole trainground and much of the surrounding forest by combining fire and wind jutsu in one of there no holds barred spars against the snake sannin. Kushina had complained for days about the resulting scolding from the Hokage.

"I'm sure you remember how she died?" Itachi nods again, he was only six at the time but the Kyuubi attack was something no one could forget. Especially after the Uchiha were accused of orchestrating it and started to plot against the village because of that. His mother had also disappeared for days after world and been slighlent and often absent on missions for months afterward.

"I was there when she died, her and lord forth had put up a huge barrier while they sealed the fox but she was still alive when it came down. The Uchina had been kept away from the events that night, even before the Kyuubi broke out we were ordered to stay in the compound by one of the council members. I was the one who enforced the order for your father, I was patrolling the walls of the compound when I sensed the nine tails." His mother pauses, her face is turned away from him but her voice carries an uncharacteristic hint of true anger.

"I had my orders. I didn't leave my post until I saw Kushina's chains holding the beast back, then I ran. I couldn't leave her to face that monster alone. We were always stronger together. I was sure that If sensei and I fought alongside her we would be able to contain it. I still am." another pause. His mother's hands are white knuckled where they rest in fists on her lap. It doesn't feel like one of the tells she gives him on purpose, though Itachi has never been able to read his mother.

"When I got there the barrier was already up, It was opaque but I could see through it with the sharingan. I saw lord fourth summon the shinigami. I saw the Kyubi impale both of them on a single claw" all emotion has fled his mother's voice, she sounds like someone giving a mission report "I heard her last words to lord third" Bitterness bleeds back into her voice for a second, "I know how strong Kushina was, there was no way that beast could break out it's own. No matter how weakened her seal was." Itachi can't contain a sudden jerk, this is classified information. Something he hadn't known even though he was in Anbu.

"Someone pulled the Kyuubi out of her, and it wasn't the Uchiha. Sensei and I should have been allowed to be there, It was our duty as her team. If we had been I would have never let the extraction happen. The council was the one who forbid our presence but it was my fault for not going against their orders. The safety of a friend should always go above the law of the village, a wise member of our clan told me that once" Itachi contains his flinch this time, what his mother is saying is treason of the highest level, to disobey the council- "It was the council who kept me from her! It was the hokage who didn't fullfile her last words, who kept me from her son! That is why-" emotion fills her voice in a way Itachi knows can't be fake. He has never heard his mother shout but now she is practically screaming her hatred for the two main pillars of Konoha, naked rage is apparent in her voice as reveals the fact that Kushina has a surviving son.

Itachi flinches away from her and she definitely notices as she cuts herself off and takes a calming breath "She was my best friend, It was my fault she was dead- that's how I gained the mangekyou" His mother finishes her voice still slightly shaking.

"So that is why you betrayed the village" itachi states and then immediately curses himself for not thinking through his words first. They sound confrontational but he meant them as conformation of the answer to the question he has been wondering about since he learned of his mother's involvement in the coup.

His mother whips her head around and he sees the sharingan flashing in her eyes before he looks away "this village betrayed me first! They took every member of my team away from me. First Kaito was killed by his own clan, and I was still loyal to them. Then they prevented me from protecting Kushina, and I was still loyal to them. I even believed Danzo when he said he would help me make sure that nothing like the Kyuubi attack ever happened again. But it was Danzo who forced me to attack my own sensei, who used me as a tool to drive Orochimuro-sensei away from the village. Then I could no longer stand to be loyal, I've given this village more second chances then any self respecting Ninja ever should-" His mother pauses for breath and Itachi hesitantly cuts in

"I am sorry, I did not mean to accuse you of anything, I was only confirming something I have wondered about for a while" Itachi says with a slight bow, he is rather in shock over his mother shouting twice in one conversation, actually showing emotion and telling him so many village secrets.

"I am sorry I have not been able to refrain from involving my views on the village in this conversation, I know how loyal you are to Konoha and I did promise that this would be I conversation between mother and son, That I would not speak as someone loyal to the Uchiha clan but as a mother worried for her son" His mother turns her head away from him again and her voice evens out.

"I see now that your feelings about the village are not because of your status as a member of the Uchiha clan" Itachi says hesitantly, his head still bowed. His mother doesn't seem to be angry with him, despite his loyalty to the village she hates. However he is no longer reassured by her promise to be his mother above being an uchiha and being in a sealed secret room with her is suddenly very frightening. She must know he is against the coup and she has just told him a lot of secrets, now would be the perfect time to dispose of him. He doesn't want to believe his mother would do that but he can't discount it anymore.

"Don't grovel to me Itachi" His mother says flatly and Itachi is started into looking her in the eye. Her eyes are black once again and she looks tired and sad "I didn't bring you hear to kill you for your opposition to the coup, or to threaten you into compliance" His mother continues, she is scarily good at reading him as always. " I wanted to help you take revenge on Shisui's killer"

Itachi snaps back into anger "Is that why you are revolting against the village? To take revenge on Kushina's killers? It was your revenge that got Shisui killed, He was trying to prevent the coup you planned" He demands

"The only part I want in the coup are Danzo and Hiashi's deaths" His mother says shortly, unreadable once again.

"Innocents will be killed in the coup, you are planning to overthrow the hokage and destabilize the village"

"Enough about the Coup, who was it that killed Shisui" His mother snaps

"He killed himself" Itachi snaps back "But he told me it was Danzo's subordinate who poisoned him so that Danzo could take his eye" he admits quietly surprising even himself.

"Why don't you share my desire for that bastard's death then?"

"I have to protect the village, the uchina are ripping it apart and he-"

"Don't trust a thing that man says, I've been trying to tell the clan for years that he isn't operating under the Hokage's orders but they continue to blame the Hokage and the village for his actions. He's gone against the Hokage's orders for years, continuing to run ROOT" His mother spits, he's managed to make her angry once again

"Then you are against the coup?" Itachi asks in shock.

"The only thing that needs to happen to bring about change in this village is Danzo's assination and the dismantling of ROOT, A change in Hokage would not be amiss but armed uprising by one of the village's founding clans is not the way to go about it. Your father refuses to acknowledge that however" His mother replies.

"Then how would you replace the Hokage?" Itachi asks warily, half expecting his mother's reply to be assination.

"Lord third has been desperate to hand over the hat for years, If any of his students were to return to the village he would probably hand it over to them immediately"

"Even to someone who experimented on the villages own children?"

"That was under Danzo's orders" His mother practically growls. _Then how can you blame yourself for following the council's orders _Itachi wants to reply but he holds it in, he doesn't want to turn his mother back onto such a painful subject."...But I will admit there is a reason my teacher was passed over as Hokage candidate"

"Couldn't we just bring evidence of Danzo's actions to the Hokage?" Itachi asks instead

"Hiruzen is too passive, he won't act against his old friend. I have brought him undeniable evidence before in the past"

"Is there no possibility that one of the Hokage's students will return, none of them are missing-nin after all. Then they could help us take down Danzo"

"Tsunade will never come back, Jirayia has an addiction to running from responsibility and sensei sends my messages back unopened"

"Is there anyone else Lord third would be willing to make his successor, the last successor was a student of one of his students after all"

"Kakashi is still too young and would rather become a missing-nin than be hokage"

Itachi raises an eyebrow at her

"He doesn't trust me" she says "He might consider making Shikaku Hokage, If his abilities were showy enough to intimidate other villages"

"Who is is his current successor?" Itachi asks, he learned in the academy that all hokage must leave a written record of such things in case the current hokage dies unexpectedly.

"Tsunade, but she'll never agree to return to the life of a ninja" his mother scrunches up her face in disapproval, this is definitely one of the tells she broadcasts intentionally, the disapproval is neatly and effective conveyed with a minimum of effort and no need of extra words. The expression is so demure but obvious in its meaning that itachi is certain his mother practiced in front of a mirror in order to pick the expression that would most clearly convey her feelings while maintaining her reputation as the domestic and harmless, of rather traditional, wife of the clan head.

It's funny how unwary the general population is of his mother, even the Uchina refer to her as 'Fugaku-sama's wife 'and don't pay much more attention than that to the only officially retired from her position as jounin three years ago but she did mostly covert work since the end of the third war, and it seems to have allowed many to forget her seem to look at her jonin ranking as just a mark of the uchiha clan's strength and move on without looking closer. People forget that she was S-ranked in all the enemy's bingo books, marked kill on sight because they knew it would be impossible to subdue her. They found it all to easy to forget who she was trained by, who her teammates were. Her genin teammate was one of the only ninjas to ever be marked flee on sight in the bingo book, and it was his mother and their other teammate's teamwork that earned her that ranking

The village was also quick to forget who had trained some of their best ninja. The head of T&I was trained by his mother until well after he made jonin, two if the black ops best kenjutsu users were also his mothers students. The village might dislike anko but no one could deny she was a valuable jonin and one of the most respected interrogators at T&I. All of those (mostly) well respect leaf nin spent their genin years under his mother's watchful one genin has ever died while his mothers team and she has had two genin teams, a much better record than many other genin sensei during the third war. All of her remains students made jonin, some of them even serve in the hokage's Anbu squad, team ro. Which itachi probably shouldn't know about but it's hard to miss it when your new purple haired sempai ruffles your hair and tells you give your mother her congratulations.

The village is too quick to forget what his mother, an Uchiha has done for it. the Hokage as is as well if he doesn't trust her enough to pay attention to the implicating evidence against one of his council that she had presented him with

Itachi glances up at his mother, she's watching the seaweed sway in the geography cone's tank. Her expression is carefully arranged to convey thoughtfulness. He can tell by the line of her eyebrows that she's waiting for him to speak even though she isn't looking at him. The lack of eye contact is only her way of maintaining polite Uchina tradition, telling him she is non threatening.

" why doesn't lord third trust you, is there no way we can change his mind? You are a student of his favorite student after all" Itachi ventures, shifting slightly on his cushion to make sure his body language conveys uncertainty, he doesn't want to touch a soft spot by mentioning her teacher.

"He may be soft on sensei but it's never extended to me, his own sensei was Lord second after all, he can't seem to bring himself to trust an uchina much less one that has tried to discredit his best friend. Any move I make against Danzo will just make Lord third more suspicious of me. I think I lost his trust when I brought him proof of Danzo's activities, if not when sensei defected." His mother sighs, " I believe he doesn't want to know the truth of Danzo actions and has blinded himself because of it"

"Is there no way we can at least convince to at least show the Uchina some goodwill, prove he doesn't support Danzo's actions"

"That require him to acknowledge that his old teammate has been spreading rumors about the uchina, he will never acknowledge the distance that has grown between the village and the uchina since the kyuubi attack. He is just like Jirayia in running from his problems only he does it within his own mind"

Itachi makes an abortive movement to tung on a ponytail that isn't there, he ends up yanking on the collar of his yukata istead "is there no way to convince the clan to stop the coup... they will destroy themselves if they attempt it, It will weaken our village in the eyes of the other kage and konoha will almost certainly be attacked if any of the other villages get wind one of their founding clans is planning a rebellion" Itachi turns to his mother in fear "The uchina would never agree to ally with an enemy village, would they?"

"The elders pride will prevent them from ever making such a move" his mother reaches over and grabs hold of the hand that is scratching at his collar bone " do not worry Itachi, you are my son. If your wish is that the coup should never come to pass, it won't"


End file.
